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Commie Toons: Middle-aged Cubans miss the Soviet-era cartoons of their youth
09.07.2013
10:30 am
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chebruashka
Cheburashka toy

Cubans in their forties and fifties may not have vintage Disney toys from the 1960’s and 1970’s or boxed sets of every Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, but chances are they may still have a Bolek and Lolek toy or book somewhere. And they’re probably downloading hours worth of other old cartoons from the Soviet era.

Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959 state television ran cartoons from Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland (Bolek and Lolek), Hungary (Gustavus), and the Soviet Union (Mashinka and the Bear, Ny, pogodi!) . A lot of these cartoons did not have dialogue, preventing the need for dubbed audio. 

Following the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 Warsaw Pact cartoons were no longer shown in Cuba, but there was a generation of young adults with fond memories of them.

A graphic designer, Darwin Fornes, started a small business in Havana this year, which he called Chamakovich, and printed up 300 T-shirts featuring his favorite cartoon characters from his ‘80s childhood. Despite the dire Cuban economy, his first run sold out almost immediately. Darwin told La Jiribilla that he used grayscale for the images of Bolek and Lolek for added authenticity: most Cubans had black-and-white televisions well into the ‘90s.

Here is a selection of the quirky and adorable cartoons that inspired Fornes’ T-shirts:

Bolek and Lolek (Poland):


Mashenka (Little Masha) and the Bear (U.S.S.R.):

More Soviet-era cartoons after the jump…

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Posted by Kimberly J. Bright
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09.07.2013
10:30 am
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